Renting an apartment vs renting a home

Nakatomi2010

So, my wife is tired of apartments, and we don't have enough money to buy a home, what's left? Rent it...

I recently found a good chunk of homes in an area near where I live that are actually pretty cheap to rent because they were in an area that was being built up really fast and then the housing skump came and now they're all just up for rent.....

I currently live in a 2 bed/2 bath apartment which costs 1020 a month to live in, the home is anywhere from a 2/2 to a 4/2 for as high as 950 a month for the 4 bedroom/2 bath.... As near as I can tell I'd have to be stupid not to move.... The store I work at has a location over there and they are trying to someone with the knowledge I have already, so it's totally like win win....

Here's the question, are there any major differences between renting an apartment and a home, anything I should watch out for? So on and so forth, like right now I don't get dinged things like property taxes and such....

I am gonig to point out briefly that the home is within striking distance of hurricanes.... Closer so than my apartment....

CooterTKE

you will pay all utilities unless your used to that now. Other then that most bills will tend to be higher because of the larger living area. Other then that most things are the same and you don't have to worry about taxes as you don't own the property.

Eat_Fire

Nakatomi2010 wrote: »

....Here's the question, are there any major differences between renting an apartment and a home, anything I should watch out for?

Landlords...






More specificly the bad ones. I had a pretty bad experience with one renting a house. They never fixed stuff without waiting 2 weeks and they wanted me and my roommates to pay for a cracked sliding door from an attempted breakin. (yes I know how that sounds).

The key things to look out for are the terms of the lease. What do you have to pay for in the house? How long does the landlord have to fix something? Any special rules? Deposit rules, termination agreement.

If they have rented the house before ask for a reference customer. If they have never rented before (which I got the impression this is a new house that has never been lived in) then be double sure to check everything over twice.

And document every single interaction between you and the landlord. Calls, talks, bill payments, and documents.

Lindsay Lohan

There are a few things you'll want to check on.

First of all, you will now be responsible for heat, which most apartment dwellors are not used to doing. Find out what the average bill has been for them, how it's heated, etc.

The biggest differences are the small things you normally don't think about in apartments. Find out about snow removal, trash removal and lawn mowing. It can be incredibly expensive to pay for a plow guy to come by and break your budget quickly. You'll have to invest in a lawn mower assuming it's your job (with my current rental it is not).

Also find out about what they will be paying. From renting houses in the past, usually they maintain the water/sewage and taxes in their names and you don't deal with those at all. Some may have you pay the water, but I've never had to.

It can be nice to rent a house, but frankly we've found it can also be a bit of a headache. Keep in mind when you rent an apartment, you are usually renting from a professional management company but often house rentals are by individuals who kept their old house to rent as a way to pay thier current mortgage. Professional management groups often have maintenance, electricians, plumbers, etc on staff and on call at all times when issues arrise - you often can't expect that if you're renting from an individual.

Good luck!

Jasconius

Just have a good landlord and read your lease contract carefully, especially on the points of what they will pay for if something breaks.

Houses have stuff that breaks. A lot of it. Appliances, windows, doors, central air, all kinds of shit. Unlike apartments there isn't a dedicated maintenance squad there to fix anything that breaks for free.

I currently rent a house and the landlord is some sort of angel who pays for *anything* that breaks without question. Shit, he even pays for pest control.

ihmmy

also watch for houses where the basement is also rented out. If you get along with the downstairs tenants, great. If you don't, it can be obnoxious to say the least

Mim

Could you find a house that has a rent-to-own clause? I'm still new to this whole buyers/renters world (still trying to work on becoming an adult) but wouldn't a rent-to-own be better in the long run?

Marty81

Typically you have to mow and pay all utilities (including water, garbage pickup, etc).

I've never heard of a landlord explicitly making the tenant pay the property tax on a rented house. Does this happen?

Djeet

As has been said, getting broken stuff fixed can be quite a different experience when renting a home. If you luck out the landlord might have hired a property management company, but usually not. I've had landlords that couldn't be bothered about fixing stuff, and ended up having to get stuff fixed myself and taking it out of the rent payments (not all landlords would be cool with that, so you might want to add wording to that effect in the lease).

The other thing you lose when living in a house is having the apartment managers be a 3rd party in disputes with neighbors (e.g. noise). If you decide to live in a house, get to know your neighbors. So if they're having loud parties you could talk to them about it instead of having to call the cops.

Jasconius

I'm sure property tax is possible.

Anything is possible, that's why house renting contracts actually need to be read.

The gamut is wide.

Somewhere between my landlord who pays for *everything* except direct utilities. He pays for all repairs, on everything that in the house (including all appliances that were present at the time we moved in). He even pays for someone to come and cut the lawn.

The opposite end being someone who pays for nothing and is a jerk and has a bunch of requirements.

Read your contract.

Nakatomi2010

I live in Florida, so heating and snow removal isn't much of an issue....

Contract reading seems to be very relavent... Alot of these homes I'm looking at seems to be being advertised by Century 21, would they be considered the landlords, or are they just advertising on their behlf?

ihmmy

century 21st would be the landlords. companies are often more trustworthy (though not always), but less likely to work out a deal or be understanding if you're a week late with rent (depending on your property manager, sometimes they can be pretty nice still). Companies are also generally (again, not always) better about repairs... we had really leaky faucets and finally called our rental company, they had a plumber out by next business day and paid for it in full

Nakatomi2010

The whole reason I could be moving is because the current manager at my store, who kicks ass, is leaving the state, and the new guy their installing as leader is by not a pleasant guy, I've got two different stores in the area willing to take me in...

Moving to one store means moving into an apartment, while moving to the other store would mean moving into a rental home.

Now my current store manager lives in a home near the "Rental Home Store", so in theory I could rent the home from him which is primely located between both of our work places... The guy would be out of state and would I have no idea how payment would occur... The guy himself is pretty reasonable so I'm supposing it would all end up being based on what the agreement are about the place right? Or should I not bother?